Let No Man Write My Epitaph (1960)

Best movie of this year hands down!

One of the worst movies I've ever seen

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.

Shelley Winters always seemed to specialise in playing roles of rather seedy, superficial glamorous, looking women who are down on their luck because they mix in bad company.Here she mixes with an assortment of low life Chicago characters, having married a man executed in the electric chair for murder.This fact she hides from her son (James Darren) because he is too young to bear the truth.Her son is gifted at music but Shelley has too many balls in the air trying to raise her family on the wages of a bar room hostess/waitress because she does not possess any other marketable skills.Dubbed on the soundtrack was a snippet of Beethoven's Pathetique sonata and Chopin which her son "plays" in preparation for his audition at the conservatoire in Chicago.Burl Ives is on hand to give a surrogate father's advice to James Darren and Shelley to keep them on the straight and narrow.He plays a drunken ex-judge who gives his life trying to save Shelley and James from an evil drug pusher played by Riccardo Montalban.A young Jean Seburg plays the love interest to James Darren the latter of whom I first saw in the 1961 film "The Guns of Navarone" which had a stellar cast.Passable, I rated the above film 6/10.

A provocative drama, directed by Philip Leacock, set in Chicago's notorious South Side in the 1950's. Shelley Winters stars as Nellie Romano, a waitress working in a bar hoping to do the best for her young son Nick(James Darren). Nick will grow up on the dirty streets dodging bums, drunks and drug addicts. Nellie and Nick live in a dirty tenement apartment, where there is more than an abundance of losers trying to look out for them. Nick practices on piano, while his mother does her best to hide the fact that Nick's father died in the electric chair.Nick often dons a black leather jacket, but is not the worst young man in the neighborhood. Albeit he gets a jail sentence for helping a friend victimized in a gang fight. Nick avoids jail by way of a "special favor" from his mom's boyfriend Louie(Ricardo Montalban). Things get dark when Nick finds out that Louie, a bookie and drug pusher, plies Nellie of any virtue with dope.A story of shame, squalor, poverty, addiction and survival. Besides Winters' stellar performance, Burl Ives turns in a strong job of acting as a former judge turned drunk. And jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald is solid as a junkie piano player. Other players include: Jean Seberg, Rodolfo Acosta, Walter Burk, Phil Ober and Bernie Hamilton.

James Darren (as Nick "Nicky" Romano) grows up innocently, in the slums of Chicago. He's the illegitimate son of the original "Nick Romano", from "Knock on Any Door" (1949). Gin-medicating mom Shelley Winters (as Nellie Romano) does the best she can raising Mr. Darren; she hopes his musical talent will help him to achieve a better life, unlike his father. Ms. Winters, to her credit, organizes a nurturing group of deadbeats. Chief among them is boozing co-dependent judge Burl Ives (as Bruce M. Sullivan). Together, they raise Darren well, but the Chicago underworld threatens to drag him down… Interesting "sequel" (of sorts); actually, this is an adaptation of Willard Motley third novel, "Let No Man Write My Epitaph", which was a follow-up to his first, "Knock on Any Door". The earlier film starred John Derek and Humphrey Bogart, and lacked much of the realism needed to accurately tell the story. There are some allusions to the earlier film; the shot of the adult Romano (Darren) ascending a stairway recalls the earlier film, as does a picture of the original Romano. This film is much better scripted; and, importantly, Chicago denizens could be shown selling, and using, Heroin. The drug use becomes a very big part of the picture.This film isn't without flaws; and, for most of the early running time, it teeters so close to plodding, soapy melodrama, you might get disenchanted. However, growing characterizations from the three leads, and nice location photography, enhance the production. Additionally, there are good supporting performances; from, for example, smarmy Ricardo Montalban (as Louie) and legless Walter Burke (as Wart). And, of course, Ella Fitzgerald (as Flora) sings beautifully.Around the time (at about 1:11) Mr. Ives has a saloon scene with Ms. Fitzgerald in the background (after a fix), the film really takes off. Situations become significantly more obvious. Darren, Winters, and Ives have big dramatic, well-played scenes. The intensity of the film heightens, to quite a very exciting conclusion. ******* Let No Man Write My Epitaph (1960) Phillip Leacock ~ James Darren, Shelley Winters, Burl Ives

a real thriller, montalban is eerie as a 1960's "pusher" and sadistic heroin addict, a must for those into drug culture and film noir. the fact that it is b/w only adds to the urban scurge of drugs use ,espcially horse in the 1960's also exceeding their actting abilities are shelley winters as a drug ravaged mother, and burl ives as the "heavy" handed dudley do right....